It is desirable to provide a relatively low cost window and door sill pan with pan flashing for directional drainage of water and moisture which can be used for construction in all price ranges of housing, and for any door or window width. In one embodiment of the current invention, a base unit is provided which can be manufactured by extrusion and either cut to a desired length to fit the door or window width opening, or used with other similar elements and connectors to establish a desired final length. End pieces and optional center joining elements are provided for field assembly.
The prior art includes U.S. Pat. No. 5,921,038 to Burroughs which describes a window sill pan with an inclined plate and ribs perpendicular to the front edge. The patent includes a front cover, but does not disclose end members.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,385,925 B1 to Wark teaches an inclined plate with ribs perpendicular to the front edge. The Wark patent does not include a cover, but does have end members. Wark also describes the possible use of other window support means such as truncated cones. Wark describes the supports as being on the apparently solid inclined base.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/730,414 filed Dec. 8, 2003 by applicant published as Application 20050055912 is incorporated by reference herein. That application describes a sloped sill pan assembly.
It is desirable to provide a common size of sill pan so that the pan may be manufactured economically and so that stocking complexity can be reduced. There is a need for several different sizes of sill pan. Some sizes may not be prevalent sizes in industry to provide large enough sale volume for fixed size pans. In this specification, the term “size” or “width” refers to the depth of the sill or sill pan which is typically a few inches; and the term “length” refers to the longer dimension of the opening, which is typically a few feet. There is a need for a sill pan assembly that can be adapted to various widths, lengths, and heights.